Drifting
by GraciaJavert
Summary: "Again, she stands before an unfamiliar road, longing to leave behind the restraints of ignorance, prepared to travel an unfathomable distance." Buried beneath the rubble of Akator, the dying Dr. Spalko draws parallels between past and present. Slightly AU.


_Where are you going?_

_Where are you going?_

_Can you take me with you?_

_For my hand is cold_

_And needs warmth_

_Where are you going?_

* * *

Spalko wakes with a curse of confused vexation, as she opens her eyes to dusty murkiness. The dissonant clash of water on rocks comes to her ears, punctuated by her own labored breathing. A faraway whirring, high-pitched and unearthly, shakes the air around her. She licks her teeth, finds them coated with blood.

As her eyes adjust to the gloom, Irina realizes that she is surrounded by rubble, lower body pinned beneath a heavy slab of stone. She brings a hand to her side, finds her rapier missing. A feeling of rage is growing inside her. What has gone wrong? Her last memory is of excruciating pain, unbearable brilliance. Now, there is only darkness, an ominous numbness in her limbs. She is not sure how much time has passed.

* * *

After shouting for help for hours, to no avail, Spalko feels despair. She has failed in her quest, the luminous truths of the universe slipping out of her grasp. All of them lost to her now. She wonders if the Beings were a hallucination, a mere illusion.

"Have I gone mad?" She spits the question out fiercely, watching beams of light waver in the air above her.

A picture rises hazily in her mind. _A fissured dirt road. A red sweater. Automobiles passing slowly, oscillating the thin mountain air. One hundred miles to Kyiv, that's what the sign had said. Irina knows how to read. She has taught herself, hunched in the darkness of the barn with a stolen candle. _

Spalko scowls, brushing the memory away. She is determined to die with detachment, thoughts orderly, prepared to meet whatever awaits her. She is not afraid of death, exactly. Irina came to terms with it long ago. She will be mourned as a hero; she will leave behind an invaluable body of research for her colleagues to build upon.

_Irina knows that she cannot return home. Her _abilities _make her an outsider. An unholy creature, God's judgment upon the remote village. She grimaces, listening to the wind rattle the parched fields. A car pulls up beside her. "Where are you headed to, girl?" She steps forward. "Kyiv."_

Suddenly exhausted, Spalko lets her eyes fall shut. The space she is trapped in has grown dark, leaden shadows stretching slowly over the walls. She considers making a last attempt to extricate herself, dismayed that this did not occur to her before.

For a moment, she mulls over her options. Irina squints into the darkness, willing herself to remain composed. She feels a sense of paralyzing disappointment, furious over the catastrophic failure of her experiment. A strange yearning comes over her; inexplicably, her hands begin brushing debris from her body. Could this mission be attempted again?

_Her hand touches the glass, tentatively. "The crank's broken," the uniformed man says apologetically, gesturing to the window, "it will have to stay shut." "It doesn't matter." Irina stares at her hands. She can feel him watching her curiously, a bruised girl in shabby clothes, hair twisted into a dirty braid. Her face flushes in humiliation and anger. "I do not need anyone's pity," she tells him sharply._

Irina forces herself to stay conscious, wedging her fingertips beneath the chunk of rubble that holds her captive. She pushes with all her strength, but hears no gratifying rasp of stone on stone. A sensation of intense pain envelops her, and then she is weightless, fading away. She coughs feebly into her hand, flecking her palm with blood. Her eyes catch the remains of her Soviet uniform, soiled and torn beyond repair. Unconsciously, her hand goes to smooth the tattered fabric, fingers shaking.

_Outside the window, dead fields turn to tumbledown buildings, streets packed with crowds. Irina ceased talking a few hours back, purposely dodging the soldier's questions. Now, he leans heavily on the wheel, unlit cigar wedged between his teeth. She knows her aloof behavior is ungracious, but feels no remorse._

Spalko takes a weak breath and shoves fruitlessly at the stone again. As her hands fall away, devoid of strength, she remembers the stub of pencil in her jacket pocket. She tugs it free, along with a scrap of paper. Struggling to concentrate, Irina scrawls a message in faint Cyrillic lettering.

I regret that I have met with failure. Col. D. and the others are dead; the fate of the captives is unknown. I depart with the satisfaction of having served Mother Russia to the best of my abilities.

-Colonel-Doctor Irina Spalko, Fall 1957.

She returns the paper to her pocket. Then, she squares her shoulders, wincing at the feel of the damp, chilly rock against her back. The cavern is almost completely dark, the light bluish and dim.

"_How old are you?" the man finally asks. "Sixteen," Irina lies. She picks nervously at the leather seat. He raises his eyebrows. "Have you ever thought of joining the military?"_

Her surroundings are becoming less concrete; she has lost the ability to move altogether. Something entirely unknown is fast approaching, trailing darkly over her vision. In spite of herself, Spalko feels a sense of dull curiosity. Again, she stands before an unfamiliar road, longing to leave behind the restraints of ignorance, prepared to travel an unfathomable distance. She chokes on a mouthful of metallic blood, barely in the present.

_Irina shakes her head, stiffly. Her eyes dart to his uniform. "You're with the Secret Police." It's a statement, rather than a question. He rummages in his pocket, extracts a match. "I am." The man strikes it with his thumbnail, casually lights his cigar. The car fills with yellow-gray smoke._

Spalko blinks, unable to clear the blurriness from her vision. Something slips behind her shoulders, hoisting her upwards; she decides not to struggle. The discordance of her strained breathing diminishes to an imperceptible sigh. Then a colorless opacity veils her sight, and she fades.

* * *

_Far beyond where the horizon lies  
Where the horizon lies_

* * *

**Author's Note: The lyrics are from "By My Side" from the musical Godspell. Reviews are much appreciated! :)**


End file.
